Covent Garden is not usually kind to light and airy productions; it seems to have been made for the dignified and solemn, on which it bestows its Olympian approval. How true this is we see when we consider the settings of Choreartium, specially that of the second movement — Andante sostenuto — in which a row of figures richly clad in deep wine-coloured cloaks and cowls, and perfectly lighted, moves in stately procession against a neutral background, like a classic frieze endowed with life. The enchanted garden, too, in L’Oiseau de Feu, is perfectly effective on the Covent Garden stage. Its stylised foliage and golden gates are very close to Kubla Khan’s “ twice five miles of fertile ground,” and seem to be peopled with evil spirits in the dim light of the initial scene, while the whole scene is riotously oriental when the golden light of dawn is over the stage.
Yet Miro’s delightful settings for Jeux d’Enfants appeared to be in no way incongruous in this theatre. This was due, I suppose, to the fact that these settings are perfectly appropriate to the ballet for which they were designed, and as such add their full quota to the complete conception. What, indeed, could be more appropriate to children’s games than bright colours, airy, sky-blue spaces and bold lines, seemingly drawn in a moment of lighthearted inspiration by an artist who can see the mind of a child?
The costumes are everywhere as pleasing and harmonious as the settings, except in the case of Pantalon in Carnaval, where it could be vastly improved. The substitution of the baggy calf-length trousers and the tousled, straw-coloured wig of the Old Vic production in which Pantalon is a figure of pitiful failure to achieve a romantic ideal, for the sleek black hair, the ordinary trousers and the undisguised virility of the dancer, Ladre, would show us, instead of extraneous buffoonery, a glimpse of the underlying possibility of tragedy which gives this ballet half its strength.
One notable attribute of the corps de ballet must be mentioned. In the ordinary, well trained chorus of a revue company, the enamelled smiles and the perfect precision of the dancers persistently suggest automata, whereas at Covent Garden we have equal precision but there is also a ripple of life running through the whole corps; it is so well disciplined that it can be allowed freedom and each individual member appears to interpret the part in her own way. This is, I suggest, largely responsible for the aesthetic satisfaction which one feels at the ballet.
Again, the economy of movement is more than praiseworthy. The miming is excellent. The gestures of the artist and his friend in Carnaval, the spinning of the Top by the Spirits in Jeux d’Enfants, the vulgar humour of the athlete in Le Beau Danube, speak louder than words, while the movements of the long, shining fingers of the magician Kostchei appearing to control every movement of the whole ensemble in L’Oiseau de Feu, and the supreme moment in the same ballet when Massine as the Tsarevitch flings open the golden gates to let in the light of day, take one’s breath by their very perfection.
It may well be said that this season is Massine’s. He has a fine genius for co-ordinating music and movement, and welding them into one complete design. In Choreartium particularly he seems to have touched the very heart of the music. Throughout, the danger of allowing the music to obtrude excessively has been admirably escaped by the conductors.
As an example of organised creation and artistic restraint in productions which demand complete subordination of the parts to the whole, this season of ballet ranks very high. It is pleasant to know that it will continue in London for several weeks to come, and it would be perfect to find that it was subsequently to tour the provinces.
P. G. HARTLEY
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FILMS: DESIGN AND MEANING
A correspondent in last month’s issue raised the question of the relative importance of design in the make-up of a film. This is so wide a problem that it would have been hopeless to include it in a brief discussion on film-design as such, but the point is certainly worth considering, particularly as this month has given us two films which indirectly throw light on it.
These two films are Black Magic and The Thin Man. The first deals with life in Bali, and belongs in essence to the Man of Aran school. The other is a very fast, very slick, American thriller — not a classic, but an excellent example of its type. Both films are good meat for the cinema-goer, but in quite different ways.
Where Black Magic fails is just where The Thin Man scores. It is unable successfully to retain our interest. Basically this is due to the same difficulties as Man of Aran had to face; and indeed it is significant that there is an attempt to meet them by the introduction of a story — a mistake which Man of Aran did not make. The story is a flimsy superimposition.
In The Thin Man, on the other hand, the story is the film. Remove it and there is nothing left. Fundamentally, therefore, the contrast between the two productions is simply that between the fiction and the non-fiction film. The chief point about this contrast is, not that the one type is superior to the other, but that the one type is far more liable than the other to certain evident dangers. The virtue about a story is that it largely compels a director to concentrate his energies on its development, forcing extraneous considerations to one side. The danger about a nonfiction film is that the looseness of the subject-matter may tend to divorce form from content, to produce irrelevant pattern-making without meaning.
It will be seen that the balance lies not, as suggested, between design and continuity, but between form and content. Film-continuity falls rather on the side of form than of content, though it shades into both.
The important thing is that neither side of the compact, whichever it be, should be allowed to overwhelm the other. Yet, since it is much more usual for the story (that is, the content) to destroy the design (that is, the form) than vice versa, one may be permitted to lay stress on the latter. A film, whatever its subject, remains primarily a film, and the subject dealt with demands to be treated according to the nature of the film-medium. Any treatment which ignores the design proper to the medium is bound to fail.
